


drop the game

by lucyjaggat



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Con Artists, Enemies to Lovers, False Identity, Hijinks in High Society, M/M, St. Denis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-10-27 07:07:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17762141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucyjaggat/pseuds/lucyjaggat
Summary: Even when Trelawny was attempting to let him in on a business proposal, he had to do so with the sickeningly false candor and condescension that rankled Arthur every time he was made its object.





	1. now that i've met you

**Author's Note:**

> This is ignoring much of the game canon from Chapter 3 on.

Jesus Christ, Arthur was tired of Trelawny. He was beginning to hate the way the slippery bastard just disappeared and reappeared, blinking in and out of their lives like some damn trick he’d conjured. It was getting increasingly difficult for Dutch to justify his continued presence in their lives, citing only the man’s continued loyalty, and Arthur seethed every time Josiah came swanning back into camp, ostentatiously receiving the fanfare and back-slapping Dutch and the others would dole out. 

And it was impossible to even get to know Trelawny. Sometimes he pretended to be English, other times not. Usually, he just adopted a sort of mixture, something both plummy but familiar, rich tones rounding out vowels before flattening the words like an American. It was difficult to determine which one reigned dominant, British or American, in his peculiar mixture of an accent. It was impossible to know which one was even real. Arthur wasn’t sure at this point which was the truth, and he wasn’t too sure Josiah knew himself. Who could say for sure what the truth was, after a lifetime of lies? Perhaps for Josiah, whatever character he was pretending to be at the moment was the truth, and everything else the lie. And here was another reason Arthur detested the man. He made him start to wonder about complexities he didn’t feel equipped to really understand, and gave him a disconcerting sense of vertigo as he started to consider all the possibilities. 

There was also the matter of the long, heartbreaking stories Josiah would tell about his family, his wife and two sons that he rarely got to see, so wrapped up was he in his escapades and thrilling adventures, all undertaken for the benefit of the gang, and surely not for his own self. It took a few years of these stories before another member of the gang, Micah or some other similarly blunt figure, took Arthur aside and mocked him for falling for all of that nonsense. 

“I heard you fallin’ for Trelawny’s line the other day. Don’t worry your head too much about his story, it’s lies all the way down,” whoever it was had advised him, before snickering and wandering back off to drink and carouse with the others. 

It made sense, in a way. What kind of traveling conman would have a wife and two sons after all, especially ones with such ridiculous names? Chastened for his gullibility and feeling none too humiliated for so readily playing along with what everyone else considered to be obvious fabrications, Arthur resolved to no longer indulge such flights of fancy as Josiah liked to engage in. Suffice to say, he did his best to avoid the man from that point. Whether Josiah even took notice of this attempt at distance was impossible to say, as he remained as unreadable as ever. 

Trelawny sure didn’t feel like one of the gang. Despite Dutch’s fondness for the man, Josiah hadn’t been with them when it counted. Arthur thought he’d gone and run off to New York, but apparently not. Instead, he appeared in Valentine, shining and perfectly coiffed, when Arthur was covered in mud and desperately needed a wash. Or three. And didn’t that just piss him off, feeling mud drip and slide off of his leather duster as Josiah hopped and bowed and scraped around them, rain seeming to avoid him entirely as even his snow-white gloves remained entirely unmarred. Dutch was charmed as ever. Arthur was not. 

***

Even though he helped them rescue Sean, there was something so irritating about the whole episode, as though Josiah were graciously aiding them in something they never could have done on their own, deigning to give these poor wretched miscreants his noble help. It was evident in his every word that he considered the gang beneath him. Too dirty, too low-down, too caught up in blood and dust and misadventure to be tricking folks the likes of which he was able to scare up with his fancy schemes. The whole time they were rescuing Sean, Arthur felt like Josiah was mocking them, and that definitely didn’t sit right with him. At least it was obvious Sean wanted to be with the gang. Trelawny was a man of no loyalties, except to himself. When he did help the gang, it was always because he had his own scores to settle and prizes to win. 

And then, honestly, if it were up to Arthur, he would have left Josiah in that prison wagon. Bad enough that Josiah could betray them all if he felt so inclined, even worse if they openly associated themselves with him. But now they had to ingratiate themselves with the local lawmen to rescue him. Despite what Dutch and Hosea said, the game didn’t seem worth the candle. Especially if that candle meant rescuing Josiah Trelawny from some punishment that he almost certainly sorely deserved. It was just one thing after another with the bastard, and he always seemed to bring an avalanche of trouble crashing down in his wake. It never seemed to outwardly affect him, though. Sitting in that prison wagon, his clothing was immaculate and his hair remained smoothly in place. Even his exquisitely-sculpted mustache remained perfect in its angular points. The second Josiah told Dutch about the two families and their dueling drama, Arthur knew Dutch was hooked. Though not overly-so.

The next mess had started when Dutch sent Charles and him to go wring some truth out of Josiah. Oh, and wasn’t Arthur looking forward to the confrontation. Maybe he’d finally get a chance to wipe that smirk off of Trelawny’s face. It would be so viscerally satisfying to bring him down to Arthur’s level. Find out what made him tick. The trail of blood leading out of the caravan made him a little concerned, true, but he also felt oddly bereft of an opportunity to have it out with the man, once and for all. Especially once a document in the caravan revealed that Josiah had been using their post alias for his own schemes. As if they needed undue attention drawn to the specifically-created neutral character of Tacitus Kilgore. For Christ’s sakes, this was going to be a mess. Arthur would have to tell Hosea that the name was a bust, and the gang would have to update all of their correspondents. Arthur wasn’t sure if he even wanted to bother to find the man, but knew Dutch would be in a snit if he gave up and left Josiah to his fate. So hell, he wasn’t gonna leave Josiah to those bounty hunters. Not if he could get the chance to deal with the man himself. 

When they found him, Josiah had been a mess. Still talking a big game, even as the blood dripped and caked on his face, even as dust sloughed off of his fine clothing with every movement. He waved imperiously and ordered them to go find the bounty hunters. For once, he even left off calling Arthur dear boy, and simply set him loose to go kill some folk. Well, Arthur could oblige. There was hot anger boiling in his veins, and he couldn’t think of a way to exorcise it beyond doing the necessary to the folk who had taken a member of the gang, as disputatious as that member was. Stalking through the cornfields, he figured he could have it out with Trelawny later. 

And, of course, when they returned, Trelawny was sprawled in a chair, lounging and looking at them with that usual slick grin. He named Arthur dear boy once more, and claimed to be in fine condition. His hair was hanging in his eyes, though, in a way Arthur had never seen that was distracting him from how much he wanted to throttle the man. He helped Josiah to walk to the horse, and the man’s stumbling, wincing gait belied his usual arrogant demeanor. Arthur began to feel almost sorry for him, but not so much that he didn’t roughly demand to know what information Josiah had decided to share with the bounty hunters. 

There was so much blood on Josiah’s face. Some blood had even dried into the slight laughter lines at the corners of his weary gray eyes, which twinkled nonetheless as Arthur brusquely questioned him. Yet another annoyance, that Trelawny could wear his dishevelment as a type of grace. As he sent Charles to take Trelawny back to camp, he wished sorely for a different life, a different set of circumstances, a life where he never had to deal with men like Trelawny and could comfortably ride out the rest of his days under open skies. 

***

So, of course, because Arthur was born under a bad sun, or something he’d done in a previous life was dogging his every step in this one, Josiah had a proposition for him. Arthur would have just scoffed and dismissed it out of hand, but Dutch was nodding in an encouraging sort of manner in the corner of Arthur’s vision in a way that somehow forbid any rejection of Josiah’s latest scheme. Even when Trelawny was attempting to let him in on a business proposal, he had to do so with the sickeningly false candor and condescension that rankled Arthur every time he was made its object. He pretended not to know what Trelawny meant when he called himself an effete buffoon purely to needle him, but it seemed only to make him even more puffed-up. 

It had been less than a day since his time in captivity, and very little sign of it yet remained on his smooth face. His mustache was groomed and sleek once more, his clothes freshly laundered, and even his hair had not a strand out of its perfectly oiled place. He even smelled clean, some light and almost floral scene wafting out to tickle Arthur’s nose in a not wholly unpleasant way. 

Dutch didn’t leave him much of a choice, so Arthur reluctantly agreed to follow him to Rhodes, even when Josiah called him a hot-blooded degenerate and implied he’d never robbed a stagecoach before. He only hoped that they wouldn’t get run out of town once more. On the way to Rhodes, Josiah engaged in his usual attempts to get Arthur to hook on to one of the tantalizing details he dropped as bait. Still smarting from the false family incident, Arthur asked only cursory questions and resolutely ignored asking about the Tacitus Kilgore company Josiah had so unwisely borrowed their alias for.

Once they were in the station at Rhodes, Arthur had to admit to himself that there was something compelling about watching Josiah reel someone in, even just as a co-conspirator instead of prey. Alden was helpless before Josiah’s cloying camaraderie and feigned solidarity for his plight, and Arthur watched in a sort of disgusted fascination as the man eagerly pledged his aid to their cause of, well, robbing stagecoaches. And the performance Josiah put on for the opera singer was unparalleled, Arthur acknowledged reluctantly. He never would have thought of that, or been able to carry out the theft without the bastard. So there might be something to be said for being a confidence man, though it remained to be seen just how useful Josiah could be to them in Rhodes. He sure wasn’t prepared to indulge the man any more than Dutch required. 

Which turned out to be quite a lot.

“Arthur,” Dutch started, in a tone that brooked no argument but warned that he would sure like to start one, “I need you to go with Trelawny for a bit, run a job.”

“What?” Arthur blurted. “You kiddin’?”

“No, Arthur, I’m not. I know you and him don’t exactly see eye to eye, but he promises this job could be plenty lucrative, and we can’t afford to pass opportunities like this up.”

Arthur really would have argued, but it was Dutch, so he just sighed in a way he hoped registered his complete disapproval and dislike of the situation, and packed for a few days on the road. Dutch had helpfully informed him it was in St. Denis, and not so helpfully declined to share further information, saying only that Josiah wanted to keep his cards close to his chest on this one, and that even Dutch himself didn’t know the plan beyond the sketch of it. So Arthur went, reluctantly and with no small amount of protest. 

***

They were halfway to St. Denis when Josiah’s unholy mixture of barely-concealed taunting and hardly-veiled condescension finally burrowed so deep under Arthur’s skin as to cause a reaction. He brought his horse to a stop, abruptly, and patted her in apology before dismounting. Josiah, despite his carefully maintained aura of jovial obliviousness, took note immediately and brought his own horse to a slow trot, before stopping and wheeling around toward where Arthur was now standing in a shallow grove of trees. Smoothly and effortlessly dismounting, he strode over to Arthur, who was attempting to lean nonchalantly against one of the trees while also projecting an air of menace. If it worked, Josiah showed no signs. 

“Really, my dear boy,” he drawled. “I thought I told you that time was of the essence here. We have an appointment in St. Denis in just a few days, and I need you to be ready for it. We simply can’t afford to stop all willy-nilly, so you can dawdle all slack-jawed and agape midst the wild vistas of the American frontier.”

Arthur practically growled in frustration. “That’s the goddamn problem,” he snarled. “You ain’t told me what the hell we’re actually doing.” 

Once again, if Josiah was intimidated as Arthur had hoped, he showed no indication. He sighed and glared reproachfully at Arthur. 

“Very well,” he said irritably. “I’d hoped to explain the plan in St. Denis, perhaps over dinner in some measure of comfort, but if you must insist so on a proper briefing here, it seems I am forced to oblige.” 

It was profoundly infuriating, but Arthur mustered his calm and asked, in a carefully level tone of voice, “and what precisely are we to do in St. Denis, Josiah?” 

He couldn’t help himself from biting out Josiah’s name like a curse. 

Josiah procured a bag from his horse and laid it on the ground before delicately perching himself on top of it. He motioned for Arthur to sit as well. Arthur decided to go along with it in order to find out just what the man was up to, and sat plainly on the ground underneath him, with a deliberate lack of care designed to provoke Josiah. Again, he was annoyingly unruffled. 

“Here’s the score, dear boy. A second cousin of the Cornwall family, a Miss Grace Lily Cornwall, is rapidly approaching spinsterhood. Her father, a business partner and kin to Leviticus, is desperate to find her a match in holy matrimony. I intend to be that match.” 

Arthur’s mouth dropped at the name Cornwall, and he felt clumsy as he tried to form a response. 

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” he managed at last.

Josiah graced him with that supercilious smile. “I assure you, dear boy, that I am in full possession of my senses,” he drawled. “Why, the plan is practically fool-proof.”

“Ain’t you got any sense?” Arthur burst out. “And how do you propose we get ahold of her money?” A dark thought overtook him as he remembered the black widow he had captured for a bounty some months back. Was this what Josiah was planning?

Josiah seemed to read his mind. 

“My dear boy,” he exclaimed. “Surely you don’t suspect me of something so dreadfully base as premeditated murder! No, no, I would be a poor confidence man if I had to resort to such low tricks and surrender to such impulses. And aren’t you quite the killer yourself? Since when do you experience such inconveniences as the prickings of conscience?”

“I don’t kill without cause,” Arthur snapped. “And not women, neither.” 

“How delightfully moral of you,” Josiah said. “Rest assured, if all goes to plan, no one need be killed. It’s merely a matter of, ah, shifting finances. A plan of art rather than of violence.”

“What the hell do you need me for, then?” Arthur demanded. 

“You, dear boy,” Josiah said in that languorous tone Arthur loathed, “will be my manservant. Of course, a stumbling oaf like you was far from my first choice for this endeavor, but needs must.” 

Arthur had heard enough. He lurched to standing, and Josiah rose to meet him. Always one step ahead, he met Arthur’s swing with an outstretched palm, and caught Arthur off-balance before neatly kicking him down. Arthur hit the ground, hard. Josiah, smile gone, pinned him. His hot breath ghosted over Arthur’s neck. All pretense of joviality was gone. 

“Listen here,” he hissed. “This could be a major score that could vastly improve our fortunes. You can either play along and receive a bigger cut, or not play along and be. cut. loose.” He shook Arthur slightly with each word at the end, as if to emphasize his point. “Are we understood?” he hissed again, his rich tones pared down to a blunt edge. 

There was something quietly thrilling about making Josiah lose his cool, and Arthur tried to swallow down his sense of vicious satisfaction at Trelawny’s loss of composure. A sense of warm, comforting distaste coiled low in his gut, familiar as a lullaby. Now this was something he could grapple with, and quite literally so. He’d finally brought Trelawny to his level, and he took a second to revel in the pleasure this realization brought him. 

“I said, are we understood?” Trelawny gritted out again, bringing his weight down upon Arthur, and Christ, if that wasn’t satisfying in its own way, making this man treat Arthur in a familiar, expected way. Arthur pressed up against him to remind him of his own weight, which was also satisfying. They struggled for a minute before Arthur was able to flip Josiah and settle over him. 

“Really, you’re making a scene,” Josiah huffed, seeming to regain his composure. 

Arthur stepped off of him in furious dislike. “I’ll do the job,” he snapped. “But if I don’t like the looks of things, I’m leaving.”

“Yes, yes,” Josiah sighed mockingly. “I’ve never been under the illusion of being able to force your cooperation, Arthur.”

“Fine!” Arthur shot back. He turned away to try to regain his own composure. Something about the argument had deeply unsettled him, and that strange heat was still coiling low down. He took some deep breaths to try and calm himself. 

Josiah, despite their roll in the dirt, looked perfectly clean again when Arthur turned back, except for that distracting lock of hair falling into his eyes. He had clearly taken advantage of Arthur’s averted gaze to right himself once more, and Arthur was aware again of how dirty he was in comparison. Josiah’s eyes ranged over him and he laughed softly to himself before mounting his horse once more, riding on without looking back at Arthur. 

What could he do but follow?


	2. would you object to never seeing each other again?

They spent the next day in a crystallized form of quasi-silence, speaking only when absolutely necessary to direct each other forward and to stay together on the road. Arthur thought that for Josiah, this lack of speech was a significant departure from the norm—usually, Trelawny was impossible to shut up. The silence was awful discomfiting, and Arthur volunteered himself for hunting when they stopped for the day, figuring that Trelawny wouldn’t deign to soil his fine clothing in the process. When he said so aloud, needling the man for a reaction, Josiah simply waved a hand at him, seemingly lost in thought. Well, to hell with him, Arthur decided, and stomped off into the nearest thicket to begin hunting. 

Hunting cooled Arthur down some, and gave him ample time to think this whole thing over. He was dreading the next few weeks with Josiah in Saint Denis. Hell, it was distinctly possible that this job would even stretch out for months, since God only knew what exactly Trelawny was planning to do with this Grace Cornwall if not killing her. He felt a little bad for the girl, truth be told. It wasn’t her fault that she was related to some bad men, or had the misfortune of drawing the eye of other bad men like him and Trelawny. It was just an accident of fate, that she was born in such a station and they were who they were, which was men determined to rob her of said station and all its requisite trappings. Arthur only had so much sympathy he could extend to the Cornwall family, but a young lady deserved the lion’s share of it, in his reckoning. He wasn’t so much the outlaw that he couldn’t feel a bit discomfited about the lives he left shattered in his wake. He hoped they wouldn’t have to kill her. 

Since Blackwater, it felt like things were getting harder for the gang. Dutch demanded more and more, and his plans got increasingly reckless. Some targets he selected shouldn’t have been targets in the first place, and others were never there to begin with, mere phantasms conjured by his desperate mind. To be truthful, Arthur felt somewhat relieved to be away from camp, even if he was going to have to play manservant to a man he hated. Better to be away than in the middle of the rising tension, the cloyingly thick miasma of aggression and failure that seemed to suffuse everyone in the camp with a need to take it out on others. If it wasn’t Molly O’Shea reminding everyone that she was tired of the situation, it was Strauss asking people to conduct his dirty errands for him. Or Sean, feverishly trying to get everyone to go on raids with him in the hopes of gluing their fucked-up family back together. It was enough to make you want to scream, and so Arthur found himself going on longer and longer hunting trips, helping every down-on-their-luck stranger he came across, anything to avoid going back to the roiling pit of worry and fear that they called home at Clemens Point. 

After about an hour of traipsing and carefully crouching, he brought his kill, a doe he’d dispatched quickly, back to Josiah and cooked it wordlessly at the fire Trelawny had deigned to start. For all his foppishness, Trelawny had already set up his tent and had the fire going when Arthur had returned. So the man wasn’t completely useless, he supposed. Josiah did a better impression of an outlaw than Arthur did of a dandy. As he looked at his bloody hands, he wondered just how Josiah was going to be able to clean him up and present him as a manservant. Did a lot of people even have manservants, these days? And would Arthur even be able to fool anyone as one? He reckoned it only had to work for a few people, but those people would be the most difficult to fool in the first place. 

And how did Josiah propose to make Arthur look different enough from the Wanted posters that he could escape detection? A keen eye like Leviticus Cornwall would be able to spot him in a second. It was only pure luck that Arthur had gone so long without an actual photograph being appended to his wanted posters, but the customary sketch was becoming more and more faithful in its depiction. This was seeming like a worse idea by the minute, and he stewed as he thought about how Dutch must be completely unraveling at this point, to put Arthur, his loyal lieutenant, at the mercy of such a disputatious fraud as Josiah Trelawny. Most of all, he hoped the score would be worth it. There was also the small matter of escaping with their lives. He hoped they’d be alive at the end of this to enjoy the score Trelawny had promised. 

He looked at Trelawny again, for a long time, and for the first real time all day. Trelawny was as impeccably groomed as ever, staring resolutely into the flames. Arthur imagined the gears that must be turning in his head, an intricate clockwork contraption designed to spool out extravagances. What must it be like to be in Trelawny’s head, he wondered. Was he ever able to turn it off, or did he look at everyone in that calculating way, always ready to cover up his avarice with an easy smile, light touching his clear gray eyes in a convincing facsimile of truth and trustworthiness? You’d be helpless against such forceful verity, lulled by his charm and artifice. As if feeling Arthur’s eyes on him, Trelawny looked up. The fire threw his features into scalding relief as he scowled at Arthur, his mouth twisting in distaste and his dark brows drawing closer together. It was clear he was dreading the task ahead as much as Arthur was. As settled by their scuffle, Arthur was willing to play along, but that didn’t mean he didn’t resent this whole business, and wouldn’t make it frequently known. Dutch hadn’t forbidden that. 

“Somethin’ to say?” he demanded. 

“My dear boy, you were the one staring at me as though you wanted to put me in some ghastly collection,” Josiah answered. 

“Just want to make sure you weren’t gonna put a knife in my back,” Arthur said, embarrassed at being caught. 

“Mr. Morgan, if I wanted to kill you,” Josiah paused for effect, “you’d know.” 

Arthur supposed that was some comfort.

***

They set out in the morning, air crisp and blowing decidedly through the holes in Arthur’s duster as they rode further away from the soft, rolling hills and brush near Clemens Point. Before them stretched the swamps of Lemoyne, the smell of clouded water and half-rotted trees blending together in a sickly mixture to Arthur. A man could get lost in Lemoyne, endless waters coming up on sudden banks, and predators lurking in the deep waiting for their chance to break the surface and bite. He could never get used to the feeling of eyes in the tall, snarled bayou trees that shrouded the murky depths from close inspection, and made sure he stepped carefully with his horse as they wound through some of the more treacherous parts of the swamp. 

It would have been easier to hire a canoe to take them through, but Josiah insisted they hold on to the horses for the duration of the journey, since part of presenting as gentlemen was being in possession of horseflesh. Arthur had to accede to that logic, and so there they were, delicately picking their way through the endless fetid waters. In some sort of cosmic jest, Josiah was still almost completely clean and shining, though Arthur could see where some mud had splattered on his finely-pressed trousers and on his boots. It gave him a little bit of satisfaction to see the man in disarray again.

Josiah seemed to always catch Arthur looking, though, and reliably, when Arthur glanced in his direction, the man would snap his eyes up and sneer back at him, mouth twisted in a moue of dislike. Figured that a slippery bastard like Trelawny had a keen sixth sense like that, to know when people were looking at him. Made it inconvenient to keep an eye on him, though. Lord only knew what Josiah was planning. 

He was relieved when they finally struggled out of the swamps and set out again on the marshy plains that led to Saint Denis. Arthur wasn’t a soft man, but he had to admit he was greatly looking forward to a bath, maybe even a night’s stay in one of those fancy hotels they had in the city, where he could stretch out on a giant bed and let the soft, feather-tick mattress carry him into a thankfully dreamless sleep. Yeah, that sounded real nice right now, as the sky started to grow dark once more and they entered the city. 

Arthur realized he had drifted into a reverie when Josiah snapped at him. 

He pulled his horse close to Arthur and said, “Pay attention! Ride close behind me. We’re staying a few blocks away from the stables for the time being. I’ve booked a suite, with an adjoining room for you, my valet.” 

“Your name is,” here he stopped and flipped through some papers he had drawn out of his waistcoat. “Allan Monfort. I want it close enough that you can get used to it but different enough to serve our purposes. I will be Jonah Truewick, an alias I’ve spent some time constructing. Yours is less fleshed-out, but will do for the duration of this job.”

“Here,” he shoved some papers into Arthur’s hands. “I want you to remove all traces of ‘Arthur Morgan’ from your journal, clothing, wherever the name is. You may keep AM, of course, as the initials are the same.”

This was all delivered in a rapid-fire, low tone. Arthur was struck by how at ease Josiah seemed with the job. It required a good deal more finesse than what he was accustomed to, and he took the papers blindly, praying that he wouldn’t mess this up for the gang. He rolled his new name across his tongue. Allan Monfort. It’d have to do. He made a mental note to scratch out all instances of Arthur Morgan from his journal. While his journal had never fallen into the wrong hands before, it would be fairly inconvenient if it were to now. And since when did Josiah know he had a journal anyway? Arthur thought he had kept that indulgence to himself pretty well, since his sketches were private. It was another unsettling reminder of how much Trelawny noticed. 

They pulled the horses into a stable, and Josiah paid the stable hand handsomely, saying that he wasn’t sure when their business would conclude but why didn’t he start with a three-week payment just to be careful. Arthur groaned internally. Three whole weeks, maybe more, with Josiah Trelawny. It was a fate he wouldn’t wish on the likes of Colm O’Driscoll. And in Saint Denis, too, a stuffy city full of people who would love to see Arthur swinging. On previous visits he had limited himself to one or two days in the city before heading back out to safer territory, but here God only knew how long he’d have to be bowing and scraping in this miserable place. 

He walked with Josiah toward the nice hotel he’d spent some of his ill-gotten gains on last time, after hitting the bank in Valentine. Hopefully they wouldn’t remember him, whatever Josiah was planning to do to alter his appearance later. His first priority was a bath after riding through those swamps, and it seems Josiah felt the same way, if his quick, purposeful walk was any indication. Or maybe he was looking forward to some time away from Arthur. He was pretty sure the man felt the same amount of dislike for him as he felt for Trelawny, and felt certain that a night’s break from each other’s company would do them both a world of good. 

Until they got to the hotel, and Trelawny drew Arthur in close. Arthur yanked his arm out of his grasp, then realized too late that people could probably see them, and might wonder why a man and his manservant were acting so strangely if they met the pair later. So he attempted to smile and said, “what?” in a snarling tone he hoped adequately conveyed his displeasure.

Trelawny just stared at him, intently. “Follow my lead, Allan.”

Arthur did, unwillingly, and they stepped into the hotel. The lights and music struck him before the door had even closed all the way, the noises of raucous card-playing mingling with the clink of glassware as the upper class of Saint Denis toasted their financial successes. Heavy curtains shrouded the room’s windows from the encroaching darkness and rendered it an island of softly glowing candlelight. Women murmured to their companions in coquettish tones, hair adorned with jeweled clips and eyes shining. Their male counterparts drank and gambled, pretending an insouciance that was belied by their darting glances over at the women. It was a rich, velvety, luxurious world that Arthur had only ever experienced in glimpses like this, and it made him uneasy to be in it for long, as if acclimating to a different environment. Despite his best efforts, he felt extremely, deeply, unforgivably out of place, and tried to regain his equilibrium as Josiah purposefully moved toward the bartender.

Josiah was ducking his head, and holding a handkerchief to his nose as if he were suddenly struck by a fit of sneezing. In between wheezes, he asked the bartender for the key to their suite, and for two baths to be drawn up. The bartender, clearly wishing to get away from him in case of some dreaded illness, assented, and sent them upstairs. Arthur was puzzled as to the disguise, which didn’t make sense to him until after they had opened the suite, given it a cursory inspection, grabbed fresh clothes from the numerous bags they had brought, and headed to the bathing room. There Josiah pulled out a shaving kit, and expertly laid out the various implements, all of which were stamped with a curled JT and looked as if they were more valuable than the sum of Arthur’s worldly possessions. 

“The first order of business, dear boy,” he drawled, “is to change the face.” And without further ado he began to shave off his mustache, peering owlishly into the large mirror hanging on the wall as Arthur watched in shock. He would have thought Josiah had prided himself on his mustache, as finely curled and maintained as it always was, but Josiah quickly and unemotionally shaved it off with nothing more than a focused, practiced eye in the mirror. The handkerchief move began to make sense: he didn’t want the bartender to remember his mustache, and so had made a big fuss, hurrying the transaction and ensuring that his lower face was covered. Well, points to him for his clever move. If it worked, and Arthur found himself idly hoping Josiah would be caught out in some deception, before realizing that that would almost certainly catch him up, too. 

After a few minutes of Arthur scuffing his boot on the floor and attempting to think of something to say about the endeavor ahead, he finally cleared his throat and drew the folding screen between the two tubs. 

“I’m gonna go right ahead,” he muttered, and began to strip.

“Very well, dear boy,” Josiah said distractedly. 

Once Arthur was settled into the bathtub, he started to hear the rustling of clothing and various shuffling noises that meant Josiah was undressing. He stared fixedly ahead and tried to focus on relaxing all of his muscles in turn as he closed his ears to Josiah’s soft, pleasured gasp as his body was submerged into the hot water. Doing so was unexpectedly difficult, and Arthur, who had grown up in a family of rough-and-tumble outlaws that never had the luxury of something like isolation or secrecy, felt a traitorous flush creeping up his neck. It seemed voyeuristic somehow, to hear something so private as enjoyment of a bath, and he cursed the decision to come along on this deluded venture in the first place. This was clearly just the first hurdle in a new, unsettlingly close partnership with Josiah and it was just as irritating as he expected the others would be. For one, he was becoming much more acquainted with Trelawny than he ever would have liked to, considering he detested the man. 

He did his best to focus on the act of bathing, soaping himself up and determinedly scrubbing the dust and sweat of the road off. When he finished, he settled into the water and decided to soak the soreness out of his body. Muffled splashing interrupted his train of thought and he shifted uneasily. How was the sound able to carry so well through the room? 

Trelawny sighed again, a gentle and breathy exhalation, and Arthur stood up in a rush, water sluicing off of him. He toweled off quickly and dressed, not even looking at his clothing as he hurried to put it on. Trelawny’s sigh seemed to be reverberating in his ears, and he had never felt quite so uncomfortable, and for no good reason, either. 

“I’m heading out,” he gritted, and hardly waited for the sound of Josiah’s relaxed, “oh?” before he rushed out of the room. There was something like a dull ringing in his ears and he realized he was breathing harder than he should be. As he closed the door to the bathing room, he shouldn’t have been able to hear the sigh again, but somehow he did, and that sound played in his ears over and over as he headed out to get a drink. Or two. Maybe more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long gap between chapters!


	3. cause i can't afford to climb aboard you

After a few too many drinks at one of the more disreputable saloons in Saint Denis he trudged his way back, feeling a slight tug of dread in his stomach at the thought of seeing Josiah again while mired in such a state. He could imagine all too clearly how Josiah would look at him with that moue of distaste and disdain and how his lip would curl as he evaluated Arthur and found him wanting once more. 

His little room adjoined Josiah’s but had no outer door, so he was forced to enter through Josiah’s room with the spare key Josiah had so carefully laid out for him earlier. There was nothing to be done for it and so Arthur carefully opened the door, praying that Trelawny would be asleep and they could avoid any awkwardness. Who knew what the man had thought of his abrupt departure? He hardly knew what had brought it on himself, aside from a fervent desire to no longer hear that content sigh. Drinking hadn’t helped, had only made him think of it with more singular of a focus, with what felt like half of his brain devoted to the task of thinking and thinking and thinking about the sound. 

Arthur stumbled into the suite, swaying a bit as the room struggled to right itself in his vision. Or maybe he was struggling to right the room in his vision. Either way, something was definitely out of order in his line of sight. Probably him. He should have realized from the crack of light shining underneath the heavy door that Josiah was awake, probably engrossed in preparation for their job, but for some reason he hadn’t considered it and blinked stupidly as the room came into focus finally and he met Josiah’s mocking gaze. 

“Look at you,” Trelawny crowed, a sharp edge to his voice that Arthur felt even through his layers of soft-edged intoxication. “Had a debauched night, I presume?” 

Arthur saw that Trelawny was sitting up at the little chair and desk in the corner of the room, hat and coat delicately hung up on the provided rack and belongings neatly arranged atop the dresser and in the wardrobe. He had clearly been busy settling in while Arthur was out, and Arthur flushed angrily at yet another measure he had failed to meet. 

“If you must know,” Arthur searched valiantly for an excuse that wasn’t I couldn’t stop thinking about the bath and I don’t understand why, “I was engaging….in reconnaissance.” He was fairly certain he had said it correctly, but Josiah’s brow furrowed in response in a way that told him he had not. 

“Reconnaissance,” he tried again. This time Trelawny gave a slow nod of comprehension, though the furrow in his brow remained. Arthur wanted to smooth it out. It was irritating. 

“And what were the fruits of this reconnaissance, if I may be so bold as to inquire, dear boy?” 

Caught, Arthur couldn’t think of anything to say. “You know,” he managed. “I hear things.”

Trelawny seemed to realize at that point that Arthur was of absolutely no use, and waved a hand at him in contempt. 

“Go to bed. What on earth possessed you to go out carousing when we have a very delicate endeavor we are about to embark upon, I’ll never know. Dutch is blinded by his paternal loyalty, I suppose.”

Arthur felt his bile rising at the jab, but shook his head instead. He wouldn’t be baited like he had been yesterday. He pushed past Josiah’s desk and didn’t look back as he stomped into his adjoining room. 

***

Arthur slept, and thankfully, didn’t dream. When he woke, he was pleasantly surprised to realize he only had a slight headache. Nothing some coffee at breakfast wouldn’t cure. If Trelawny let them have breakfast. It was possible that whatever devilish machinations the man had dreamed up for the day didn’t include breakfast, the lack of which Arthur mentally prepared himself to protest. Luckily, once he dressed in his usual outfit and entered the main room, Josiah jumped up from the desk, perfectly coiffed, and said, “Ah, dear boy! To breakfast?”

After they had eaten, Arthur waited patiently for Trelawny to reveal the day’s plans. He had learned by now that needling Josiah would most likely not make this wretched job go any faster, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dreading every step of the damn way.

Trelawny exhaled in satisfaction to himself as he took a sip of coffee, and the previous night’s confusion came roaring back to Arthur. He shifted uneasily in his seat, praying for a distraction. What he wouldn’t give for Leviticus Cornwall himself to come striding in, demanding his head. Or a whole posse of O’Driscolls, hooting as they clamored for his blood. Anything was preferable than having to think about that hot room, with the steam curling Josiah’s hair ever so slightly as he frowned into the mirror, unaware of Arthur’s attention. There was something greatly amiss with him, and he didn’t know whether he wanted to strike someone or run. Wishing for something truly distracting to happen, and coming up blank, he decided to create the diversion himself and to escape his strange, recursive thoughts. 

“What are we doing today?” he demanded. 

Trelawny met his gaze and sneered, giving Arthur a once-over with a singularly withering expression on his face. 

“So you’ve decided to participate in this fine venture after all?” he drawled.

Arthur felt the heat rising in his face. Fuck, but Trelawny riled him up. 

“I’m here, ain’t I?” he snapped.

“Very well,” Josiah said briskly. “Our task for today is to make you into something approaching an acceptable valet. If I am to be believed as a wealthy and cultured man, my valet must appear the same. It will be quite the labor, but I remain confident that I will be able to make you at least look like you belong in Saint Denis high society, if only superficially.”

It was obvious that Josiah was itching for a fight, though hardly a muscle twitched in his face to indicate this. Arthur decided not to indulge him in this, though he sorely wanted to. Maybe later, he could have it out with him. Make him stop looking at Arthur like that. Make him look at Arthur with something other than barely-veiled contempt. He realized, abruptly, that he was still looking into Josiah’s eyes, the look in which had turned from annoyed to speculative the longer Arthur gazed. He looked at the table instead, which was safer.

“So what does this grand transformation entail, Trelawny?”

Trelawny pretended not to hear him, Arthur could tell. He merely sipped his coffee and appeared to be waiting for something. It took a minute for Arthur to realize. 

“Truewick,” he amended. 

Josiah looked at him, then. “My dear boy,” he said, “we are going to make you a gentleman.”

***

It turned out that the first step was getting his hair cut. Josiah led him to the barber and brooked no protests, at one point even gripping Arthur’s elbow in his hand as though Arthur were about to cut and run. Arthur imagined he could feel the heat of Trelawny’s fingers clutching his elbow and resented every second of it. 

The barber shop was in the Old Quarter, and the usual pole sat outside, faded from the sun but giving its message all the same. A man outside gave him a once-over as they entered, eyes raking from head to toe as if he was evaluating Arthur’s appearance with scientific care. The smirk that appeared on his face after he had finished his examination confirmed it. If Arthur had been Arthur, and not Allan Monfort, he would have said something: confronted him, shook him down, maybe even would get to feel the satisfying crunch and burst of pain of his knuckles on another man’s face. But he was Allan, and he suspected that Trelawny wouldn’t want Allan to have even a hint of disrepute about his character, so he nonchalantly entered the shop, pretending not to hear how the man scoffed in his wake. 

Once inside, a man in an immaculate white coat gestured for him to sit. He seemed to know, with the secret knowledge of the upper crust of Saint Denis, that it was Arthur who didn’t belong, and not Trelawny. Maybe they’d just seen the Wanted posters. Or maybe Arthur gave off an air of menace, while Trelawny didn’t. Trelawny, the chameleon, able to fit in anywhere, sprawled on a nearby divan and opened a newspaper. The shop was thankfully empty, and they had apparently walked in during a lull in traffic. The fewer witnesses for whatever Josiah wanted, the better. 

“What would you like done, sir?” the barber asked, standing patiently behind him.

“I--” Arthur stopped. What did Trelawny want? Trelawny gave no sign of helping him answer, so Arthur guessed. He supposed this was a test of some sort. “Short….and shave my face.”

“Very well,” the barber said, and set to work. Trelawny didn’t look up. When it was over, Arthur studied himself in the mirror. His face, freed from the days of rough stubble that had accumulated, seemed younger in his own estimation. His hair was cropped close to his head, but still had enough give for some pomade. Overall, it was a fine cut, and Arthur supposed that this was the kind of difference that was made when you had a professional do it rather than a man setting up in the lowest saloon in town. When he stood up, Trelawny did as well, and approached him. Laying his fingers underneath Arthur’s chin, Josiah tilted his head up, and then moved his face from side to side to examine all angles, as if Arthur was a prize steer. 

“You wanna check my teeth, too?” Arthur snapped. Trelawny nodded at the barber instead and handed him some money before guiding Arthur out of the shop once more. Arthur’s chin was tingling as if Trelawny’s fingers had been a brand after all. Josiah ignored the remark and took Arthur’s elbow again. 

“Would you quit doin’ that?” Arthur protested, but let it happen anyway. There was something almost comforting about having a guide in the busy streets of Saint Denis, even if it was one as irritating and loathsome as Josiah Trelawny. 

It was a lovely day. The sound of the city was all around them: the impassioned calls of the suffragettes, the shrieks and whistles of birds wheeling in the sky above, even the banter of various workers as they slung bales and drove the carts that underpinned the local economy. From the south there came the smell of the water, and the industrial quarters near it. It was warm enough that Arthur loosened his collar after feeling a drop of sweat make its way down his back. He felt as though if he closed his eyes for just a moment and focused, he could really believe that he was Allan Monfort, on a regular, ordinary day undertaking some banal errand with his employer. Maybe the job wouldn’t be so bad after all; maybe Trelawny would be on his best behavior, or at least act like he was. It was the kind of day that put hopes for things into you. 

Within a few minutes, they were standing outside the tailor’s. Arthur had never been inside: the vastness of the store and the sparkling clean interior that he could glimpse from the outside had always intimidated him too much to ever sully it with his muddy presence. Josiah confidently swung the door open, though, and announced to the finely-groomed man at the counter that he was looking for the latest and finest in Saint Denis fashion for his valet. 

“I know he doesn’t look like much,” Josiah continued, “but he really cleans up so well. And his help is invaluable, I tell you. He may look like he has not a lick of manners, nor gentlemanly deportment, but what can you say? Appearances can be so deceiving.” 

The tailor nodded and chucked softly, as if in recognition of how hard it was to find a good valet. Arthur resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It never got less annoying watching people stupidly walk into Josiah’s web, however temporary their stay would be. It put his teeth on edge to see people get wrapped up in that oily charm. 

“Well, let’s get you measured,” the tailor said to Arthur, finally deigning to look at him.

Josiah cut in, flapping a long-fingered hand. “Oh, that’s quite unnecessary,” he intoned, and then rattled off a series of numbers that were incomprehensible to Arthur. The tailor nodded and grabbed a small notepad before asking Trelawny to repeat them. Arthur fair itched with the question: how on earth did Trelawny know his measurements? He wasn’t even certain of them himself. Josiah caught his eye as the tailor bent to examine his catalogue of inventory, and winked at him. Arthur looked away. 

The tailor bustled off to his storeroom to find a few options for Arthur, and Josiah leaned in. 

“Do try to look more accommodating, dear boy,” he murmured, and Arthur became suddenly aware of how close he was standing. “You are my servant, after all,” he said, and smirked.

Arthur hated that smirk. He watched as the curve of Josiah’s mouth curled up into what was half snarl, half smile, and he fought the answering temptation to smile back. In his head, he listed the reasons he hated Josiah, not first of which was the fact that the man was impossible to trust. Beguiling people was his job, and there was no reason to think this sudden camaraderie, however strained, was in any way genuine. In fact, from then on, it was probably for the best to consider all of Trelawny’s attentions to be feigned. A man like him could fake anything: friendship, loyalty, even basic trust. It was only wise to keep him at arm’s length until he could safely return to Dutch and the rest of the gang.   
Josiah noticed his lack of response: the friendly light in his eyes dimmed and he turned away. Luckily, the tailor came back at that moment, arms laden with suits. 

“Let’s get started,” he said brightly, and Arthur groaned in resignation. 

***

They were forty-five minutes into trying on suits and Josiah still wasn’t satisfied. Arthur was still unaccustomed to the way Trelawny’s eyes would rake over his body each time he stepped out of the small, curtained dressing room. Then, inevitably, something in his face would twist, and he would bark to the tailor in complaint. 

Arthur really hoped this last suit would be the right one. He wasn’t sure exactly what Trelawny was looking for, and didn’t have the know-how to find it himself. The tailor kept up his smiling exterior but was clearly starting to get exasperated with the two of them, and just sighed when Arthur smiled sheepishly at him. 

The suit was black, simple, and hung close to his body. There were flashes of white, and grey, and the inner lining was a rich blue-black. It wasn’t as flashy as some of the other ones he had tried, but it had its own appeal. Arthur really, really hoped that Trelawny would accept this one, since it was also the simplest. 

When he stepped out, he knew he had finally succeeded; Trelawny’s eyes lit up and he looked at Arthur with an avarice that was unsettling. Arthur knew it was because they would be able to move to the next step in his plan, but it disturbed him all the same. There was a hungry glint in his eyes that Arthur recognized as lust.

He wasn’t stupid, despite others’ implications. He knew who he was, and he knew how things worked, and he knew how other people operated and how to get ahead of them. There may have been little in the way of formal education for him, but he could recognize a thing like attraction, especially when it was shown so plainly. Josiah Trelawny was attracted to him. Whether it was artificial, Arthur didn’t know. It was entirely possible that this was some sort of trick, some layer for their shared deception, some necessary pretense for the job to work. There was no way to know. 

Their eyes held. Arthur felt a flush creeping up his neck, and thought of the bath again. 

He was in trouble now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the wait as usual....thesis work is eating me alive.


End file.
